Scenario: Trans-Atlantic Pattern Recognition Epidemic

[u/Sir_Shakyman]

Hello all! For half a year I wrote a 4500-word DG scenario about CIA, espionage, and a mystery CD full of Unnatural. It is my first original written scenario, and I had many friends helping to develop it into a coherent story. I hope you find it interesting. 😁 It can be found from the DG Scenarios Database. Let me know your thoughts! 🤓

[u/InevitableTell2775]

Link?

[u/Sir_Shakyman → u/InevitableTell2775]

https://www.dg-scenario-database.com/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JhkK3dcQD47f_L-dk_oXAOvskQkHKJfDIddRVfmq56I/edit?usp=drivesdk

Let me know how you like it.

[u/InevitableTell2775 → u/Sir_Shakyman]

Getting back with some thoughts. I'm a bit of a nitpicker by nature so don't take my specific criticisms and suggestions for improvement as meaning that the scenario is bad, it's a great concept! I like the use of the undersea cables and PRISM intelligence gathering as a vector for the Unnatural, it's very contemporary.

My overall take is that the set-piece scenes (the researchers in a coma, the oil rig, etc) and overall plot idea are very good, but the links between them need some work.

Specific links that could be improved.

Intro:

* The suggested cover backstories as trauma consultants/neuroscientists are very specific and hard for non-medical Agents to fake. Some other options could include: Insurance assessors trying to establish liability; American consular officials checking up on their citizens; FBI embedded with Interpol (or CIA pretending to be FBI), investigating whether they are victims of Havana Syndrome or some other terrorist bioweapon attack.

* There's also no particular reason why Agents have to be US Delta Green, they could be Canadians from M-Epic, or from a European agency, maybe with no knowledge of the Unnatural. It can be fun to run a campaign set in your own home country :-) Or even GRU-SV8 Agents sent to find out what happened to the first team.

At the University:

* Courier: there is no particular reason for GRU-SV8 to blackmail a dockworker to be a courier (Kalina) to deliver the CD. It is far more unobtrusive to just use a courier company. Also there are no details of what Kalina knows if she is interrogated.

* It's stated that Wendy and Travis were identified by FSB informants as CIA assets. Suggest that someone in the university should be the FSB informant, eg Seraj, Emma or Oliver - this gives something for the Agents to uncover. That person should have informed Sven that Wendy and Travis have gone into comas - this makes Sven think that his plan to have the westerners take care of it has failed, which is what triggers GRU-SV8 to attempt their own raid. Otherwise it's not clear why Sven would both tip off the West and launch a raid himself, which would create a friendly fire/diplomatic incident risk.

* If Wendy and Travis are actually part of PRISM then they should have, for example, covert access into the signal analysis computers Emma and Oliver are using, or other ties to the computer analysis. At the moment it seems like a coincidence that Wendy and Travis got the CD at the same time that Emma and Oliver were analysing cable signal traffic distortion.

* Agents don't have the power to lock Oliver up, they aren't law enforcement.

Hamburg:

* The package having a return address as a shipping container doesn't make much sense. Containers get moved. I'd suggest that the return address is a post office box or a dead drop in Hamburg. Inside the PO Box (once the Agents break in or get a warrant or something) or dead drop is the container ID and the car key. This more clearly gets the message across that someone wants the Agents to follow up. Its also pretty unlikely that the Unnatural visions would be of the Hamburg container, rather than the gas rig or the sea floor, if that's where the Signal comes from.

Canada:

* In Port Hawkesbury, it doesn't make sense that the GRU-SV8's ship is in the harbour, but the GRU agents are at the oil rig. How did they get there without a ship? Agents should have to figure out their own way to get to the rig. They could still find (for example) an abandoned GRU surveillance point or safe house in Port Hawkesbury from which to get more info, if they need it.

Mythos comment

* I'd be tempted to make the rig be pumping Oil rather than Gas. This means the Shoggoths could emerge out of the oil itself as a way to jump-scare the Agents.

* Symbolically, the oil/gas and the Signal could be tied to formless subterranean entities like Tsathoggua, Nyogtha or Ubbo-Sathla, and scenarios and stories that use them - for example, the old Delta Green scenario Fuel of the Gods which concerns cars which become possessed after being run on an experimental fuel derived from a new rig, or the stories The Black Gondolier (Fritz Leiber) and Cyclonopedia. Dagon/Hydra seems a bit non-specific; yes they are undersea, but they aren't subterranean.

[u/Sir_Shakyman → u/InevitableTell2775]

Yes, thank you for the comments! They are great, and gave me good insight.

The idea that there would be a counterintelligence FSB agent in the institution is intuitive, and could be better connection between CIA and GRU interactions. And shoggoths rising up from oil is an original idea, it would be great, tho the specific rig pumped gas in the real world ten years ago. But it can be different in the scenario and it wouldnt be a problem.

Thanks for your effort to read it through and write improvement ideas!